Darwinian Logic: Or, the Survival of the Fittest
by sylphides
Summary: Harry just wants some peace. No such luck, not with the company he keeps. AU, high chance of crack- you have been warned!


**Disclaimer: Not mine. From the way I've abused it in the following story, probably a good thing…**

**Warnings: AU from I don't even begin to know when, and rather…OOC might be the mildest way to describe it. **

"Come on, Harry, we've all had a turn," Hermione began, turning expectantly to her best friend.

"Yeah, mate, give it a whack," Ron shouted. He was redder in the face than normal, the outward sign of the natural high from having just experienced the rush that followed immediately after a wizard or witch's first success with a complex and complicated bit of magic.

Or it could have just been pride and a hint of embarrassment at the amount of gushing his girlfriend, one Pansy Parkinson, had done over his Animagus form. What was it about girls and small dogs? Even Hermione, who preferred cats, had condescended to scratch the terrier version of Ron behind the ears. Ron, of course, had lapped it all up. No matter, really, just about everyone in the Transfiguration classroom was flushed, except for Draco, who was as pale as ever, and McGonagall, who looked twinkly and serene in her tartan. Did everyone who became Head of Hogwarts _inherit _that talent for twinklyness? Because, frankly, it was starting to creep Harry out a little to see the retired Headmaster Dumbledore's signature expression on the normally stern witch. _Must remember never to take the Headmaster's position if offered, _Harry thought silently to himself. Harry Potter did not and would never _twinkle. _

"Yes, unless Potter's scared of not succeeding now that all of us have made it on our first try," Draco drawled, shooting Harry a jeering smirk that made Harry want to hex it off of the bastard's face. Perhaps a nice Bat-Bogey Hex—Ginny had finally caved and taught him how to perform one, after years of incessant whining (Harry was quite proud of his siege efforts on Ginny in wearing her down enough to finally get the secret of the spell).

"Shut it, Malfoy," Harry snapped, gripping his wand tightly in an effort to control his temper and nerves, and was pleased to see Hermione reach up without even looking to thwack her highly aggravating and erstwhile boyfriend upside the head.

"Ow, Hermione!" Malfoy whined.

She rolled her eyes. "Be nice," she ordered, practically in unison with Ginny Weasley, who was sitting on Malfoy's other side and snuggling with a dreamy and glowing Luna Lovegood. She'd come home to the Burrow a year ago with the blond next to her and announced in the middle of the house that she was sick of sneaking around like a common criminal and that she was in love with Luna and everybody could put that in their pipes and smoke it. Well, she'd used less polite terms, but the gist was the same. There'd been a bit of an uproar, but eventually everyone had come around. Honestly, Molly Weasley had been more outraged at her daughter's use of expletives than her choice of partner, and had already begun to broach the topic of children via alternative options to the couple (although so far, the girls had both held out against the pressure—ahem, suggestions).

That had been around the same time Ron started seeing Pansy in a fit of rebellion (on the part of both parties, actually), and by virtue of being two explosions of similar magnitude, the damage and fall out had been negated to an extent, for which Harry was eternally grateful. All he wanted was a little peace! Which he wouldn't get if his friends kept stirring the pot up. Harry frowned around the room in general at the lot, who insisted on keeping things chaotic. Normally the most sensible and logical of them all, Hermione had been the first, showing up abruptly one day at the Ministry Officials Ball two and a half years ago with Draco next to her. He had been dressed in expensive dress robes and wearing the most dazed expression Harry had ever seen on Malfoy's face. The double shock of Ginny with Luna and Ron with Pansy had come next of course, and the fall-out had taken months to subside. In that time, Harry had stopped reading the news. Better to be completely uninformed about anything than to endure the endless headlines, speculations, and oh Merlin, the _photos. _Why, oh why, did Wizarding photos have to be so explicit? No modesty at all! Harry shuddered to remember the screaming, the accusations, and the blatant displays of affection and, ah, _more, _that he and everyone else had stumbled upon on multiple occasions. Harry was surethat at least half of those revolting displays had been staged—probably planned to the last second and grope by Hermione, to prove to those who disapproved that the couples in question would do as they pleased, where and when the pleased, thank you very much. The tabloids had a field day and Harry a permanent headache and near-addiction to headache relief potions.

Then, if it wasn't enough, just as the furor was dying down and the media looking for some other scapegoat to descend upon, Kingsley had decided that the Aurors were getting fat and lazy (though he phrased it in a much more diplomatic fashion) and issued an order that all Aurors select a special branch of magic to study, to 'further their education and sharpen their skills'. Since Occlumency had already been tried and failed, Legilimency an invasion Harry refused to make, Arithmancy entirely too mind-boggling, Alchemy too outdated, Parseltongue considered a natural ability rather than learned skill, and everything else too obscure, difficult, or confusing, Hermione had suggested that he become an Animagus like his father.

And she'd been so enthusiastic about his 'project' and how much it reminded her of their schooldays that she'd roped this entire circus in for the ride as well to learn to become Animagi, and contacted McGonagall to set up lessons. Now, at the culmination of the last of the theory and preparatory work she'd mercilessly put them through this summer, everyone had attempted—and succeeded—in transforming and maintaining their Animagus form for a full minute. Everyone, that is, except for Harry, who hadn't tried yet and wasn't sure he wanted to at all. _I just wanted some peace, is that too much to ask for? A little boredom, the repetitive routines of an utterly dull and unexciting life. _He thought longingly of his bland apartment and the TV programs that he was missing right now.

"Come _on, _Harry," urged Ginny. She was rubbing her hands excitedly, still bouncy from her own transformation into a Bob cat—either that, or her awe at Luna's effortless shift into an ethereal Monarch butterfly. "I bet you'll be a stag, just like your father!"

"Or an ass, just like himself," quipped Draco.

"In your dreams, ferret," he snapped.

"Incorrect, Potter. The correct terminology would be a _Vulpes lagopus,_ an Arctic fox," Draco informed him, nose rising higher in accordance with the superior tone of his voice.

"I can't believe you and Hermione are both foxes," Harry muttered.

"Of different species. I am an Arctic fox. She is a Red fox," Draco lectured, sounding eerily like his girlfriend.

Ron groaned miserably. "She's got you spouting off facts, Malfoy. You're going to start reciting _Hogwarts; A History_ next," he said in horror. "I can't take another one!" Pansy patted him consolingly. "Ah, at least my Pansy darling doesn't talk my ear off about meaningless subjects, do you kitten?"

"You'll have to start calling me something else, Ron, Ginny's the real kitten. Hmm…perhaps…songbird?" Pansy fluttered her eyelashes extravagantly at the redhead, and Ron's ears turned the same shade as his hair.

"Ravens aren't known for their exceptional voices," Hermione protested at once, in full information mode. One could just see the textbooks shoving their way out of her throat, desperate to get out. "The sounds they make are not prized by musicians. It is said to be remarkably harsh to the human ear."

Pansy shot Hermione a vicious glare, Ron remained oblivious, Draco smirked, Ginny giggled, and Luna hummed the tune to _Somewhere Over the Rainbow _several tones off-key. Harry felt like faking pain in his entirely quiescent scar, just to get out of the room and away his obviously mental friends.

"So, Mister Potter, would you like to—'give it a whack,'?" Professor McGonagall asked—no, Minerva now, she'd insisted on that straight after the Leaving Ceremony when they'd all graduated, five years ago. _Blast. _Harry still couldn't remember to call her by her first name, after five years out of Hogwarts and two being a successful, fully-trained Auror. It was near impossible for him to call her by her first name. Then again, he had had much more success calling Professor McGonagall, 'Minerva' than Professor Snape, 'Severus'. The first—and last—time he had cheekily addressed his former Potions Professor by his Christian name in a fit of mischief, at the Leaving Feast, he had nearly lost his life. Only Professor Dumbledore's quick intervention had saved Harry that day. Harry was sure that if Snape had really put his mind to it, he could have simply intimidated Voldemort into surrendering. He certainly couldn't imagine the ill-tempered man kow-towing to anyone, let alone some homicidal maniac with delusions of world domination.

"Harry?"

Hermione's voice broke into his mind's monologue. Everyone was looking at him. Flushed. With success. Harry took a deep breath. It was just a stupid spell, after all. Just a simple enough incantation to kick off the initial transformation—_hopefully. _What was there to be afraid of?

_Nothing, _he thought sourly, _except for a lot of haranguing old friends who are all watching me like bloody hawks right now. Peer pressure, anyone? Even facing Voldemort wasn't this tense. At least no one was watching us duel. Everyone was too busy ducking for cover and trying not to get killed. _

_Come on. Man up. Be a Gryffindor! _Harry finally nodded tightly, and moved to the empty space in the middle of the floor. "Here goes nothing," he murmured, and everyone as one gave him an encouraging smile—or sneer, in Malfoy's case. It was the closest Malfoy might ever come to a smile towards Harry. His wand didn't falter as he began the series of gestures that he had memorized, though his hands were unbearably sweaty. Finally, as his wand swept down in the last stroke, he invoked the incantation, concentrating fiercely on the little spark of himself and the need to reform the rest of his outer vessel—his body—around him.

Dimly, he was aware of the world being _big. _And _bright. _Very, very Bright. _Blinding_—it was piercing, like a ray of doom, and he needed to get away from the unsafe zone. Scuttling for dear life, he spotted shadows summoning him some distance away like a beacon of safety. He'd have to run fast to get there soon—there was indistinct noises coming from high above him, and something told his gut that the creature or creatures that were lurking were big enough to injure him. Better to get under the cover of darkness and hide in a crevice or crawl space until that horrible light went away. The noises sounded louder now, and pressed against and around him, and he hurried faster, until—

Something Big descended over him and shut out the light, and the rest of the world. Before he could panic or ponder what had just happened, he felt his world distort and felt his body change, shoot up, and within instants Harry was himself again, sitting sprawled almost under McGonagall's desk, a _bucket _of all things on his head. A _bucket? _

He wrestled it off, panting, and met the stunned eyes of all his friends. Harry noted with curiosity that Ron, Draco, Pansy, and Ginny were—somehow—standing on desks, their chairs knocked over. Hermione had her wand out still, pointing at Harry, a look of dumb surprise on her face. That in itself was slightly unnerving, as Harry could count on one hand the number of times he'd ever seen Hermione look dumbly surprised. Luna was still sitting where he'd left her, swinging her legs merrily. She was now humming a different song, a jaunty, catchy jingle of one that Harry thought sounded vaguely familiar. McGonagall's eyes were wider than normal and her spectacles slightly crooked on her nose.

"Well?" he demanded, peeling himself off the ground. "Did it work? What did I become?"

No one spoke for a long instant. Then Hermione said slowly, "Harry, you had better sit down first."

"It wasn't that bad! Was it?" Harry began to feel nervous when he noticed that the people on the desks looked petrified, although Draco was already beginning to smirk incredulously as if all his Christmasses had come together.

"Well, let's put it this way," Luna piped up, smiling to herself. "You're just as hard to kill as an Animagus as you are when you're you."

"What's _that _supposed to mean?"

"What it means, Harry, is that your Animagus form is—a cockroach." McGonagall seemed to have recovered her equanimity and she answered briskly as she straightened her spectacles. "Your Animagus form is a cockroach, a fine big specimen and fast too, by the way you moved. No distinct markings that I was able to observe during your, er, transformation."

Harry was dumbstruck. No, he was horrorstruck. A _cockroach? _

Abruptly, Ginny dissolved into helpless laughter, nearly falling off the desk she was on in the process. When he glared at her, she could only convulse more as she gasped out, "Harry, your face…"

As if her breaking the ice had begun it, everyone else in the room cracked up as well, and Harry, bewildered and furious, could only glance around at each of them with despair and wounded dignity welling up inside him. "A bleeding cockroach," he moaned, dropping ingloriously to the floor again. "I'm never going to live this one down."

"A giant Madagascar hissing cockroach, I think," Luna remarked, which only set them off into gales of laughter again. Even McGonagall was chuckling, and there was that _twinkle _again.

"Glad to amuse," Harry muttered peevishly, putting his face in his hands. _Kill me now, someone._

"Come now, Harry, it isn't so bad," Ron tried as he clambered awkwardly off the desk. "Gave us a bit of a fright, is all."

"I didn't know you were that afraid of roaches, Draco," Hermione said slyly.

Draco stuck his nose in the air. "Afraid! I wasn't afraid! I was merely…taking precautions so I wouldn't be tempted to step on Potter," he declared.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You four jumped up there and screeched so loud I thought the roof would fly off," she said bitingly. Ron flushed dark red, Draco looked horrified and seriously offended, and Pansy and Ginny—well, neither were at all ashamed to be afraid of crawly things.

"Never mind that," Ron said hastily. "Hey, Harry, it isn't too bad, really. As long as you don't transform around me—you know, too close to spiders and all that. You have a dead useful form for getting into places you shouldn't be getting into, and being where you shouldn't…" he trailed off.

Harry shot him a dirty look. Ron wasn't the one that was stuck with a _roach _form, a pest considered dirty, creepy, and disgusting by all humans and exterminated with ruthlessness when possible. _Merlin above, I'm a pest!_

"Well, look at it this way, Potter," Draco said too cheerfully, the glee at Harry's dilemma evident on his pointy little face. "Now not only are you're the Boy-Who-Lived, you're the inevitable roach that wouldn't die, and those are a knut a dozen. You'll be as common among the rest of the roaches as you always wanted to be."

Harry groaned in sheer agony and dropped his head into his hands as everyone about him shook uproariously with mirth. _With such friends, who needs enemies? _

**A.N.: And this bit of crack and nonsense is because, for the life of me, I can't seem to concentrate long enough to work on the longer stuff. I actually happen to love small dogs and terriers, and I fully embrace stereotype when it comes to girls and bugs if it means I don't have to deal with the bug. Also, in case you were wondering, that catchy little tune that Luna was humming after Harry transformed back from his, ahem, roach form, is _La Cucaracha, _a nice song in Spanish about—you guessed it—cockroaches. **

**Also, for the readers that have read my actual serious work, a.) sorry? And b.) sorry! I know it's been a long time since I produced anything of substance. I'm struggling both with vast changes in my RL as well as a massive writer's block. **


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